ICELAND SMALL SHIP FIRST TIME
ICELAND, OUR FIRST SMALL SHIP ADVENTURE, FACTS
we are veteran Tauck land customers. We have taken the Galapagos trip twice, but that is an expedition boat. We have not taken a river cruise yet.
We just returned from the Iceland Small ship tour on the brand new Le Laperouse, it was the second tour and in fact the ship had it’s official naming ceremony the day we boarded the ship.
We arrived a day early on Iceland Air, it landed about 7am, but we were able to check into our room on arrival at the hotel. The airport is about an hour drive from downtown Reykjavik. We stayed at the Tauck booked Hilton Nordica hotel, apparently half the group stayed at the Grand hotel nearby, but both hotels were not near the town. We walk very fast but it still took us a good 25 to 30 minutes to walk into the center and that’s a long time when you have flown overnight and are walking in cold windy weather. So our main criteria for a good Tauck hotel is location, location, so not so good. For those who care, the bathroom was smaller than the one on the ship.
We were in cabin 507, just opposite an elevator, it was fine, no elevator noise and quite handy to be near when the ship was on rough waters and the stairs tricky. The ship is very nice. We were a little disappointed in how small the bathroom was, but it did have a huge drawer under the sink, the shower was good and plenty of instant hot water, we could just not be in the bathroom together. There was a good hairdryer. The room had plenty of electrical outlets and USB outlets. Plenty of storage there. Coffee and tea facilities in the room. We were told laundry service would take 48 to 72 hours to be returned, we did not try it. I tried washing a piece of underwear and a pair of socks the first night and it took forever to dry.
The French style food cuisine was wonderful. I never want to see food again for a few days. There was a signature cocktail every night to try. Breakfast and lunch were buffet style, dinner was full service. There were some interesting vegetarian dishes and i saw gluten free bread too.
All the crew were wonderful and friendly but Mr B would want me to mention that more than a couple of the crew had pretty bad body odor problems, he meant to put it on our survey but he forgot.
There were somewhere between 165 and 180 guests on board, I heard both numbers from the tour directors, but all were Tauck guests.
This tour had the new Tauck ‘Choices’ for some of the tour days, we knew about the choices and had made them ahead of time as directed from the Tauck emails we were sent. But there was major confusion that we have never encountered with Tauck before, first, they canceled our booking in error when our friends canceled a couple of months ago. We all booked the tour as soon as we were notified about it opening up about 18 months ago. Tauck joined our booking which Mr B and I did not want, as our friends often cancel things, but. Tauck insisted our bookings were still separate, but clearly they were not and the first thing we knew was an email from Tauck saying so sorry we had canceled. If we had not gotten straight on the phone, I guess our booking would have been lost as the tour was sold out by that time. It was reinstated.
We knew we had choices on our tours and had researched and were ready to pick them, but when we got the green booklet on final payment it looked as if all the tours were included as in the past. Then a couple of weeks before we went, we received a letter from Tauck to say they had sent everyone last year’s tour book in error. By this time I had dismissed all our research and we had to start all over. So when we got on the ship, some people had not had the ‘Choice’ email,
Some people had no idea there were choices. We had an explanation and those who had not chosen anything were urged to make the choices so the correct buses and so on could be in place ASAP, but still people did not do that and there was confusion for the first couple of days.
We had four Tauck tour directors and one Cruise director, they were all excellent and friendly and we had taken a tour with one of them at least twelve or so years ago.
Whenever the tour days included everyone doing the same tour, we had four buses that were staggered maybe leaving every ten minutes or so. There was no seat assignment as we are used to on land tours and like. On the choices days I must admit that would be difficult. The tour directors said if the same people kept grabbing the front seats, others would notice. That was not the case, every time we got on the bus with one group of four, they were always in the front seats, we found that so annoying, but who would dare to rock the boat and say something. I don’t want to be at the front of the bus, but i would have liked my turn at least once on the tour, it never happened.
There was entertainment on the ship that began at 9-15pm every night, four excellent dancers, one who was the singer, she was very good. The shows varied in length from around maybe twenty minutes to an hour with lots of costume changes done very well. One night we had a fabulous classical
Pianist who played on the brand new Steinway. I think three of the nights there was dancing in the bar area, we danced until maybe 11pm on two of those, we generally went to bed much later than we anticipated we would. There was a singer and guitar player/pianist in the bar each night too.
The weather this year in Iceland is apparently the worst summer in 100 years as far as the amount of rain goes. We had two rain days but fortunately the days you would want to have sunshine, we did, but as always in Iceland at this time, it was cold and windy, I think I wore more layers than I do in a NE USA winter, usually when Tauck says layers, I need one less than most people, so you get the picture. My tip here would be to wear layers that have either zippers or buttons at the front rather than things that you need to pull over your head since you will have hat, listening device, camera etc to negotiate and you are constantly removing or adding layers as you move in and out of wind, sun or buildings or the bus.
There were lectures and the Tauck BBC movies. We enjoyed the latter, partly because on other tours the directors have had difficulties with equipment not working to show the movie or when there has been photo equipment etc they did not know how to use it properly. We enjoyed a tap dancing lesson too.
The itinerary got switched around on several days because of weather. The best day was when we had to go to Grimsey in the afternoon instead of the morning, but as a consequence we found ourselves in the middle of a pod of about fifty Killer Whales and watched them for a long time.
On the first night, we were thrilled to be invited to the Captain’s table for the Gala dinner. There was the Captain and his wife who was visiting, a French couple, the husband worked for Ponant, Us, anther couple and a single lady. We had the advantage of enjoying superior wines but of course wonderful conversation with the Captain. We Tauckers pretty soon realized we had done many trips with Tauck which I guess is why we were chosen, thanks Tauck!
A Small ship tour was a very different Tauck experience for us. I would say you need about half the stamina you require to do a land tour, mainly because the day starts so much later. At this point we still feel fit enough to do land tours and prefer them. While the Iceland tour is not a good example, on a river tour say, you definitely cannot get to see as much as a land tour equivalent and you can’t get to know other people as well or have the same close relationships with the tour director, that big group is just too big to form a Tauck tribe that one usually belongs to by the end of a tour.
Ok so all the laundry is done, time for lunch. If I can answer any questions feel
free to reply.
